


Forget and Forgive

by Seethedawn



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Canon Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27261175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seethedawn/pseuds/Seethedawn
Summary: His mouth drops open and his hands move to clutch at his chin. “Oh, Anna. Tell me you remember. Anna, please.”There is more hesitance in her voice than she wants when she replies, “...remember what?”He drops into the armchair and makes a sound as though all the air has been punched out of him. “You had an accident, Anna. You’ve been asleep for days. The doctor said there was a risk, but I didn’t imagine - ! Anna, what is the last thing you remember...?”
Comments: 50
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing Anna sees when she opens her eyes is the navy blue canopy hanging over the bed. She frowns, confused - it’s not her bed, the sheets are blue and the pillow is lumpy in all the wrong places. She finds she’s laid out on her back rather than curled up like she usually is when she wakes. She pushes herself up on her forearms and looks around the dimly lit room. 

“You’re awake-” a voice says from off to the side. Anna shrieks, startling backward in surprise. Both her hands fly up and she cries out again, this time from a deep, sharp pain in her left shoulder. 

Hans, it’s Hans - her brain is sending her too much information she can’t make sense of it - her legs are tangled in the bed sheets and it’s Hans rumpled and sitting in an armchair at her bedside. 

“What are you doing here?!” she demands, pulling blankets one-handed up to her chin - she’s in her nightgown! - “How did you get in here?! Guard!”

He had started to reach for her but at her squalling he has pulled back, both hands up in front of his chest, and he speaks in a low soothing tone, “Anna, Anna, Anna, it’s okay. You’re okay. Anna.”

No one has burst through the door at her cry, and he’s backing off still, looking so odd with unkempt hair and wrapped up in a dressing gown, so Anna brings her knees protectively up to her chest and demands, “Where am I?”

“You’re home, Anna,” he says, frowning, concerned. “In our room..?”

“Our room? What do you mean _in our room_! You get out of here, how did you even-” 

His mouth drops open and his hands move to clutch at his chin. “Oh, Anna. Tell me you remember. Anna, please.” She can’t quite make out his face in the gloom, but he sounds just about as shaken as she feels. 

There is more hesitance in her voice than she wants when she replies, “...remember what?”

He drops into the armchair and makes a sound as though all the air has been punched out of him. “The doctor said this could happen, but I didn’t believe him. No, no, no...” he trails off, miserably. 

“What!” she fairly snaps, urgent dread coiling in her stomach. 

He looks up at her, watching closely. “You had an accident, Anna. You hit your head in the stairwell. You’ve been asleep for days. The doctor said there was a risk, but I didn’t imagine - ! Anna, what is the last thing you remember?” 

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

“You,” she fairly hisses, puffing up in anger, “you were being taken back to the Southern Isles. Elsa was queen again and the fjord was back to normal. The gates were open. And - and…” 

A void, where memories should be. She sets her jaw, concentrating. What happened after that day? They had dinner together, Kristoff was going to stay… Elsa, they were going to properly talk… what next? What happened after? 

A pulsing headache rises from the side of her head. She reaches up to put pressure on the side of her temple and pulls her hand away with a pained gasp. 

“Try not to touch it,” Hans cautions, uselessly. He’s still watching her from his chair but he hasn’t come any closer, hasn’t pushed her for more answers. She probes cautiously at the source of the pain. She finds bandages circling her temple, holding puffy gauze over her left ear. She pushes again and receives another sharp flash of pain. 

“Do you have a mirror?” she asks, shakily. 

He jumps to his feet and hurries across the room to an armoire. Outside the window is still dark, she doesn’t know what time it is, but she can see by the lamp light that the surface is set up for a woman to make herself up; a large mirror, hair brushes and powder boxes. He rummages in a draw then returns with a smaller, handheld mirror and holds it out without encroaching on her space. She takes it and lifts it up, peering squint-eyed into her reflection - the bandage is large and she can see the shadowy edge of a dark bruise at her hairline. No wonder she wasn’t sleeping on her side! She brings a hand up to inspect closer when the glint of an unfamiliar set of rings catches her eye. The mirror drops to the bed, discarded as she holds her own hand, inspecting what is very clearly a wedding ring and an engagement ring.

“Ah,” says Hans, drawing her attention back. He clears his throat and smiles, an anxious, apologetic expression. “It’s been four years, Anna. Since - the fjord.” 

Anna swallows around her pounding heart. “Who - who am I married to?” she asks the man who has been watching over her bedside while she slept. 

“Anna…” he says, gesturing broadly. 

She shakes her head determinedly. “No,” she says, scooting to the far side of the bed, ignoring the way her shoulder pulls painfully and her head throbs at the motion, “No, I need to talk to Elsa.” 

“Woah, woah, woah,” he says, hurrying around the bed to meet her, hands outstretched as if preparing to catch her should she fall, “Anna. We’re not in Arendelle. We don’t live there. I’m so sorry, I'm sure it’s confusing.” 

“I’m in the Southern Isles?” she nearly shouts, now scooting the other way, avoiding him. 

“No, no, I’m, uh, I was banished, after - listen, will you please lie back down? I’m very nervous of your condition and the physician said to make sure you rested.” 

She maneuvers backward, ignoring his outstretched hand, so she can lean against the headboard. Her shoulder had begun to shake with the strain of supporting her, she rolls it a little and gasps in pain. 

“I don’t understand,” she whispers, near tears. She hurts, and everything is confusing, and she’s barefoot under the blankets and for some reason that makes it all so much more overwhelming. 

Hans sits on the side of the bed. Anna draws her legs in so they are in no danger of touching. He scoots deliberately away. 

“We should talk tomorrow. Maybe when you wake up it will all be there…” 

“I want to talk now,” she argues around and yawn. 

“It’s late,” he counters, “you need rest.”

“Tell the short version, then,” she says, staring straight at him. 

He sighs. “Very well, the short version. My father banished me, as I said, and I was sent back to Arendelle for you and your sister to pass judgement. Luckily for me, Arendelle does not execute people, and neither of you were fond of locking me in a dungeon for the rest of my life, so I was put up in a house under guard. You and I formed a connection, and then…" he gestures again, this time at her left hand. 

She frowns - a very short version. "How did that happen! I wouldn't ever-!" He winces, looking away, and abruptly Anna stops talking. "Sorry," she offers, "just…" 

"It took time," is the only explaination he offers, smiling at her apologetically. 

He still hasn't answered her questions. "What about... Kristoff?" she asks, "what happened to him?" Last she remembers - a blush - a searing kiss and a promise to stick around. 

"The ice harvester?" Hans shrugs, "He went back up the mountain. Why?" 

She frowns. She doesn’t remember. Concentrating just brings her headache to a crescendo. That can't be right. And yet here she is. She wants more information, but she’s scared and she doesn’t want to keep talking to him. The weight of sleep pulls her back down to the bed. 

For a moment it looks like he is heading back to his bedside armchair, but she sits back up, wary as he approaches. He nods, tells her goodnight, and she collapses back onto the bed when the door clicks shut behind him. 

Perhaps it's all a strange dream. Either way, she will get more answers tomorrow. 

{ - }

The woman who shows up in the morning is considerably older, and Anna feels very awkward in the her presence. She bustles about the room, running through a routine that may well be long-established, but Anna feels stiff and out of place, vulnerable in her night clothes and bandages in the face of this utter stranger in her bedchamber. 

"I'm sorry," she ventures eventually, "I hope Hans filled you in…"

The woman stops, coming to stand at the end of Anna's bed. 

"Of course he did, Princess. I hope you're feeling better this morning." 

"Oh yes, much, thank you," Anna responds, automatically. She, in fact, still has a throbbing headache and must have rolled onto her side in her sleep because her injured shoulder is aching horribly, "though I'm afraid I don't, uh, seem to remember, still." 

The woman says, "Oh, how awful," with a sympathetic expression. 

"Right. So I'm afraid I don't actually know your name…"

"Bertha, Princess." She does a little bob at both knee and neck. 

"Oh, no," Anna rushes to say, "honestly, no need for any of that. Just Anna, is fine." 

It is strange, though - why does it feel like Bertha is meeting _Anna_ for the first time too? 

“Have you been with the household long?” she asks, confused. 

“Coming up on two years now, Miss Anna.” 

Anna files the information away, adding to her vague sense of a timeline. It seems a long time for them to still have such a formal relationship...

“Is that how long we have been at this house?” 

“Oh, um. Well l, you were settled here before I joined the household. I don’t know exactly…” Bertha looks to the door, seeming agitated. 

“Not to worry,” Anna reassures her, “I'll just ask Hans. Is he going to be coming by, do you suppose?” 

“I haven’t seen him yet today, but I’m sure he’ll be along. Will you be getting dressed today, do you think?” Bertha asks.

Anna feels nervous about seeing him. She doesn't know if she can trust him still, but he is likely her best source of answers for now - this poor woman is clearly trying to transition quickly away from question time. But Anna has never been one to lounge in bed even when ill, so she's happy to go along with the new topic. 

Bertha moves to the wardrobe and begins to select and lay out Anna’s clothes. Usually Anna likes to choose her own clothes in the morning, surely Bertha knows that though - it must be because she is injured, so Anna doesn’t correct the assumption. 

Anna hesitates, then decides to push on anyway. “If you don’t mind my asking - how do you find Hans, as an employer?” 

Bertha looks up from unhooking a mess of buttons down the back of an unfamiliar blue dress. “Oh, very fair. The both of you. Wallace and I both appreciate our positions here.”

“Wallace?” asks Anna, scooting to the edge of the bed, being mindful of her swimming head and aching shoulder. 

“Wallace manages the kitchen, and the groundskeeping,” Bertha explains. 

They take a minute to get Anna’s nightdress over her head, the motion pulls her shoulder horribly and repeating it to get her arm in the sleeve of the new dress leaves Anna winded and seeing stars. 

Once Anna is recovered she stands and turns, bracing on the bedpost and Bertha sets to work on buttoning the back. 

“How did I hurt myself so badly?” she asks. 

“You slipped in the back stairwell. You were alone, and the stone is quite worn in some places. I’ve nearly fallen myself a few times.”

“Well we should have carpets put down, perhaps.” 

“I’m sure your husband will see to it.” 

Anna frowns, uncomfortable with the reference to her apparent marriage, but she can't exactly argue the point.

“So I was just found alone at the bottom of a stone stairwell?” Behind her, Bertha _hmms_ in agreement. Anna can picture it in her mind - not a memory, but more as if she were hovering above herself - a bloodied face and her arm laying at an unnatural angle. She’s probably lucky to be alive, really. 

Bertha finishes the buttons and steps away. “Will you be needing help with your hair?”

Anna doesn’t like the thought of trying to raise her arm to the top of her head, so she agrees. They move to the vanity and Anna sits, suddenly face-to-face with herself in the clear daylight. 

The dark bruising peeking out from her hairline and the bandage holding the gauze in place makes her look quite shocking, actually. She can see more bruised skin along the collar of her dress, and she traces it from her shoulder to the base of her neck. Her injured arm is stiff and throbbing, the skin sore and painful to the touch. Dislocated, Bertha said. The doctor had reset it while she slept. 

Unsettled, Anna peers beyond all that, trying to find evidence of those missing years - she doesn’t visibly appear older than her memories suggest. Her hair is cut slightly differently and it has grown longer, reaching further down her back. Behind her, Bertha clears her throat, cutting short Anna’s self-examination. Embarrassed, she sits straight so the woman can get to work. 

Bertha’s touch isn’t ungentle, but it is certainly brisk. She brushes Anna’s hair out and twists it up into a rather tighter bun than Anna would have. Anna supposes she must manage her own hair each day, so Bertha may not have had much practice at it. 

“I suppose something must be done about the bandages,” Anna wonders, “shouldn’t gauze be changed every so often?” 

“I’m sure your husband will be able to help with that. I wouldn’t want to disturb the wound.” 

“Of course.” Anna bites at her lip for a moment, before screwing up the courage to ask a very inappropriate question, “How, um... well, forgive me, but how do you find Hans and myself, as a couple?” 

She watches Bertha’s face in the mirror. She frowns, a little, shifts uncomfortably. To be expected, Anna is way out of line. 

“Very much in love, Princess. And happy in each other’s company.” 

Anna blushes and ducks her head. It is a fine answer, but she cannot make it _feel true._

She needs to speak with Hans. 

{ - }

Anna spends some time familiarizing herself with her bedroom. She doesn’t find any evidence that she shares it with her _husband_ , which is both a profound relief and also makes the place feel quite sad and empty. She has never liked to have her own bedroom, and had imagined in marriage that she would share. Not that she isn’t grateful for the space today, however. 

She investigates a shelf of books and a desk, but finds no letters. She’s apparently grown more mature in her reading taste over the years - her old favorites have been replaced with proper classics, the kind of thing her tutors had to bribe her to crack open when she was a child. She runs her fingers down the spines, trying to remember reading any of them more recently. Nothing comes. 

Her window overlooks the front of the house and she settles on the bench there, watching the birds. Illness has never suited Anna - she likes to be outdoors, or at least in company. From what she can tell, their house is very isolated, surrounded by dense trees and distant mountains. Not a single coach has gone by while she has been watching, though it may be Sunday for all she knows. 

Hans comes by around mid-morning. He looks odd in the daylight, lingering and uncertain in her doorway. He isn’t wearing his coronation suit - why would he be? - but it’s strange, to see him in a comparatively casual blue suit. Anna supposes she must have seen him in a whole range of different attire, but her brain isn’t supplying anything at the moment. Just a white suit and a punchable face. She waits, unnerved still in his presence. 

“I’ve asked that brunch be set up in the conservatory,” he suggests, offering an arm, “I thought we might share tea and talk?” 

Something they do often, she wonders, or a special occasion on account of his wife having become an untrusting stranger overnight?

Anna’s head spins as she gets to her feet, but she does her best to hide it - she’s not going to miss a chance to see more of the house. Taking his arm takes another mental push; she remembers so clearly the way she had hung off him all night at the coronation, embarrassingly eager. Now though, she’s braced and tense as she rests her hand on the inside of his elbow. Waiting. 

Nothing happens, but he guides her through a hallway, down a set of stairs (a different one, obviously), past a drawing room and into the conservatory. It’s not a big house at all, in fact it is one of the smaller homes Anna has ever stayed at, but she doesn’t mind that. The place just has an uncared for air that she can’t quite put her finger on. There doesn’t seem to be enough furniture to make proper use of all their rooms, the pictures on the walls are too dreary for her taste, and the wallpapering strikes her as deeply out of fashion. Though she’d never admit it, the whole effect makes her wonder about their financial situation: if their stone staircases are bare and their walls need re-papering, if their household cook also manages the gardens…? Her dowry would have been enough to set them up for life, surely? 

The conservatory is very nice though, there’s little beads of water along the glazing, like it must have been raining earlier in the morning, and a lovely silver tea set sits, still steaming, waiting for them on a tray. Hans guides her to a seat and sits in the chair opposite, which is considerate of him, as a husband would typically sit beside his wife. He pours the tea, citing her hurt shoulder, while Anna looks out into the garden and chews her lip. 

They make light conversation - he asks how she slept and how she got along that morning. 

“I met Bertha,” Anna says, for want of a conversation starter, “she seemed -” Anna hesitates on the word _nice_ , “well, I didn’t get the impression we were close.” 

Hans waves dismissively, “I’m sure she was just on edge due to your condition. She was very concerned when I spoke with her this morning. And she’s very formal, in general.”

“Yes…” Anna agrees, halfheartedly. “Just - usually I become quite good friends with everyone working in the household.” She doesn’t like to mention it, but typically her personal attendants are much closer to her own age, as well. She can't imagine two years with Bertha, still so stiff around each other after all that time. 

“Would you like me to speak with her about her attitude?” he offers, seeming totally sincere. 

“Oh, no, no, don’t!” Anna can’t imagine anything worse - she’s had many a servant’s child offered up as a not-Elsa playmate. It became more excruciating the older she got. 

He rests a hand over hers and stares into her eyes. “I want to make sure you are comfortable, Anna.” 

She avoids his gaze. The real issue is that it’s him that makes her uncomfortable. She is struggling, still, to believe they are married. She wants to interrogate him, she wants _proof_ , but he has been considerate and concerned and she can only imagine how painful it would be to have the woman you love wake up one day and insist that she could never truly grow to love you. 

He offers her the cup and she takes it, thanking him. It’s hot still, so she blows on it. It’s quite an awkward situation. There is a newspaper folded under the tea tray. She turns her head to try and read it. Hans catches her and laughs lightly, shifting the tray, and handing the newspaper to her. 

“It’s yesterday’s. I can have today’s fetched, if you’d like.” 

Anna barely hears him. She sets her hot tea down on the table and holds the newspaper in two shaking hands. 

_September 23rd, 1847_

Last she remembers it was July. July of 1843. _Four years_ , four years - lost. It’s true. The print blurs through a veil of sudden tears, she feels herself choking and spluttering, her heart trying to beat through her ribs. 

Four years... her head spins. 

Hans leans over to pull the newspaper away. He holds her hands instead and ducks to meet her eye. 

“Anna, my love. Ask me your questions. I’m not going to be offended. I understand that you’re confused.” 

“How,” she bursts, seizing his offered hand with her own, “how did we - ?” 

“Well,” he says, “we had a connection, at the Coronation. That was all real, for me. I asked you to marry me and you said yes, you remember all of this?” she nods, flushing slightly. To her, it sounds so childish and insipid, but she can remember feeling carried away by the romance of it at the time, “You remember everything with your sister? How she froze Arendelle and ran away? You left to track her down, but you weren’t there when we finally located her in that ice palace in the mountains.” 

“You attacked her,” Anna says, trying to reconcile Elsa's explination with Hans’ retelling. She pulls her hands back, suddenly uncomfortable with the warmth of his touch. 

He shakes his head. “You had disappeared, the town was still frozen, she was emotional, unstable, we were trying to get her to come back peacefully.” 

Unbidden, Anna remembers the cold hit to her chest. She nods. 

“She escaped, the storm seemed to be getting worse. She ran out onto the ice and I thought - she can’t be reasoned with, she can’t stop it, she can’t be kept safe until she calms down, it seemed like to save Arendelle, I would have to…” he looks up, now, straight into Anna’s face, “and then you came out of nowhere, I never would have - !” 

Anna frowns. He seems sincere, but he has left something out and she cannot leave it unsaid. 

“But, you wouldn’t kiss me,” she argues, frowning, feeling the dual chill of the memory, “you doused the fire and left me to freeze. You said - you said, horrible things.”

He looks uncomfortable, now. He reaches for her, but she shifts further out of his reach. 

“Anna, sweetheart, you were saying something about a frozen heart and true love’s kiss. It didn’t make any sense. I regret that I was harsh, but it was a stressful situation. I left you in the palace, surrounded by servants and guards, you weren’t in danger of freezing - not until you went out onto the fjord, anyway...”

Anna feels wrongfooted, but she doesn’t doubt her memory - for her it was only yesterday, after all. 

“No,” she insists, hurt and angry, “no, you said no one would love me, and I was freezing, but you doused the fire!” 

She can barely repeat it back to him without ducking her head, but he stares right into her eyes all the while. 

“I’m sorry Anna, it’s been years, I don’t remember exactly what I said.” He leans away now, bringing up one hand to brush at his face, “You know, it's funny, the first time we had this conversation you were more upset about me trying to kill your sister.” He chuckles a little. 

The comment stings. It’s the first truly cruel thing he’s said to her since she woke up last night. She swallows bile and politeness and asks him, “Is that how you speak to your wife, then?” 

For a moment she thinks he looks furious, but his expression morphs into something open and vulnerable and deeply sad. 

“No, Anna, no. I’m so sorry,” he actually slides forward so he is on his knees before her, “I shouldn’t have said that. It has been a very stressful few days since your injury and I have hardly slept, though that’s no excuse at all.” He does catch both her hands in his own now, taking a second to brush his slender fingers over her rings. He looks up into her face, “I love you, I’m just worried.” 

She’s startled to see this side of him suddenly, thrown off balance by the sincerity in his face. 

“No, it’s okay,” she assures him, “I’m not trying to be difficult.” 

She’s relieved when he gets up off the ground, though she feels a little crowded when he slips onto the cushion beside her. 

“You haven’t had any of your tea yet,” he points out, “would you like me to call for something else? I’ve not been a very good husband this morning, but at least I can keep you hydrated.” 

“No thank you,” she says, collecting what is now her lukewarm cup. 

“Scone?” he asks, gesturing at the rest of the tray, “butter? strawberry jelly?” 

Anna feels drained and off-kilter, she’s tired again and her head is still hurting. She doesn’t like strawberry jelly, but it's an insignificant factor in the face of everything that’s happened. 

“Just butter,” she says, “and I’d like to take it in my room.” 

He tries to protest; he offers to take her out into the garden, but she won’t be swayed. She wants rest, and time to herself. She needs to process. 

He promises to have the tray brought up and walks her back up to her room, a steady elbow grounding her as they move slowly through the unfamiliar house. 

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” he asks once she has been safely returned. 

“Yes, actually,” she says, “I didn’t find any of my letters or diaries or anything, do you know where I keep them?”

She seems to have caught him by surprise and he fumbles when he answers, “Uh, no, actually, I’m afraid I can’t say where those types of things are kept...” 

The answer strikes her as odd - does she keep her correspondence hidden from her husband? He certainly seems embarrassed to admit it. 

“Alright,” she allows, “if you can have Bertha bring the newspaper up, I’d like to spend some time reading it. Oh, and some parchment and a pen, if we have any.”

“Are you sure? You don’t want to strain yourself…” but he catches her resolute expression and relents. “Of course. Anything else?” 

“Yes, I was thinking about my bandages. Do they need to be changed or...?” 

“No,” he explains, “the physician said to leave them. Not to touch anything and give it time to heal.”

That’s a relief, at least. She didn’t particularly relish the idea of having him poke about there anyway. 

Anna bids Hans a good day, and leaves him out in the hallway. She’s dizzy again, as she turns away from the closed door - she probably could have done with an assisting hand on her way back across the room, but she manages. It’s not the most dignified landing on the bed, but she has herself settled by the time Bertha arrives with the tray. 

Anna is alone again before long. The room is warm enough, but she's cold under her blankets. He doused the fire, she remembers sleepily. Kristoff had seemed so worried that she assumed it was obvious she was freezing, but Hans - hadn't noticed? 

The blue stone of her engagement ring glimmers at her. She closes her eyes, hiding from the reality of it, and sleep takes her once more. 


	2. Chapter 2

A castle like Arendelle's always has more than one chef in the kitchens, even when running on a reduced staff like they were for most of Anna’s life. Anna always knew all of them, she spent a great deal of time down in the kitchens, especially after Elsa receded behind that impenetrable door, and the kitchens became the liveliest part of the otherwise still and silent castle. They kept a stool at the end of a long countertop - she winces, suddenly wondering if it’s been removed now that she has left - where Anna has perched during the lunch-prep hour since she was hardly able to see over the counter. The chefs and their various assistants always had time for Anna.

The things like that, the old stool in Arendelle’s palace kitchen, the things she can _remember_ , they have taken on a new significance now. She doesn’t even know what she has forgotten in this house - what seems meaningless to her now, that a week ago she might have treasured.

Anna sits alone at her desk, fidgeting. She moved from her bed after breakfast, but that was an hour ago now. Her head aches from the effort of trying to drag memories out of the blank depths. She feels agitated, morose, lonely. Is this how Elsa felt, all those years? Like a doll put on a shelf – waiting.

Well, Anna’s never claimed to have an overabundance of patience.

She moves to the door, and out into the hallway. She’ll spend the morning exploring the house, under her own power now, unaccompanied for the first time. Maybe, she thinks, at her own pace and without distractions, something will begin to feel familiar: a favorite chair, a view out through a window, or a shaky bannister she knows to skip. Anna knew Arendelle castle by heart - she could have run loops blindfolded (and she did, a few very dull, rainy afternoons), and perhaps it will be the same here.

Bertha finds her so quickly once she leaves her room that Anna wonders if there is a bell somehow attached to her bedroom door. She assures the older woman that she is not in need of assistance, and when Bertha still seems reluctant to leave Anna to her exploration, she assures the maid that she will stick to the carpeted areas of the house, injecting some force into her voice. She’s not going to be shuffled back into her room.

Bertha leaves, though Anna suspects the maid tells on her, as Hans approaches right as Anna is settling into a chair in the downstairs receiving room. She cuts him off before he can speak.

“Just familiarizing myself with the house,” she says, somewhat defensive. She knows her limits, she has sat down because she is feeling weak, and she is not in need of an escort inside her own home.

He must see determination in her face, because he inclines his head in acknowledgement and indicates down the hall.

“I am in my study if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” she says, trying to make it sound like conversational etiquette, rather than gratitude for _allowing_ her this independence.

She’s lonely, sure. But not so much as to invite his company.

She spends some time on the matter but can’t identify a particular favorite among the collection of seating options. Perhaps she doesn’t spend much time in the receiving room.

Bertha is in the conservatory, making a show of watering potted plants while she observes Anna from a distance, so Anna moves deeper into the house. She has yet to meet the last member of their household, after all.

She’s immediately enamored of the kitchen – the warmth from this morning’s cooking has seeped into the brick and tile, and the long wooden preparation table is messily strewn with pots and knives and vegetables. And there’s a stool in the corner! Anna must spend time down here.

The chef, Wallace, is portly and short, with whiskers on his face in the fashion of the older generation in Arendelle. Anna smiles widely in greeting and apologizes for startling him.

“Sorry to sneak up on you,” she says, “I’m exploring the house.” She laughs – it’s funny because she’s obviously been here a while, but Wallace doesn’t crack a smile back at her.

“Uh – you don’t mind if I visit for a few moments?” she asks.

He wipes his hands clean on a towel and gestures widely. “Your house,” he offers.

He’s rather gruff, but Anna doesn’t let things like that stop her from making friends. Instead she focuses on moving the kitchen stool into position. Her shoulder hurts, so she doesn't want to lift and carry it across the floor. She tries an awkward sort of dragging motion, hooking the wooden leg with her foot and steadying it with her good arm, but the tile isn't laid flat, so she quickly knocks the thing over.

Feeling silly and a little offended - after all, he could very easily have offered to help her - she pushes through the dizzy swimming in her head and ducks down to set the stool back to rights.

He's watching her still, quite clearly not finding her clumsiness charming.

Well, she supposes, fighting a rising sense of shame, she's the lady of the house now, not an awkward, fumbling girl. Or she was a few days ago, anyway.

"Sorry," she offers, "you've probably heard the story before, I just, I used to sit in the kitchens at home - Arendelle, I mean. When I was -" _lonely_ , " - younger…"

He watches her for a moment, too much beard for her to really make out an expression on his face, before he offers, "I can have some food brought up to your room, if you'd like, Princess?"

Something sad and solid settles in her stomach, dragging her shoulders down too. She clearly has not made friends with their gruff chef-slash-groundskeeper either.

"Tea," she says, in as strong a voice as she can muster. "Thank you, Wallace."

She leaves him in the kitchen, surprised by how stung she is. She doesn't know the man, it's silly to be upset - he doesn't make a very pleasant impression, and he is certainly not obligated to be her friend. The same is true of Bertha - Anna is their employer. But even at her lowest back in Arendelle, when her parents had died and Elsa still, _still_ didn't have anything to offer Anna… she had the castle's staff. At least. The kitchens, the maids, German, Kai - all people Anna had known almost all her life.

And apparently, when she left, none of them chose to come too.

Anna wonders if she asked.

Here, it seems, all she has is Hans. She can't bring herself to turn to him now though, so she makes her way back upstairs to her bedroom. She wants to have composed herself before tea arrives.

{ - }

Anna has set herself up at the bench by the windowsill. It’s barely midday and the sun is shining and the mountains are beautiful and she’s fighting a confused and lonely sense of despair. She runs everything they’ve said through her mind, trying to match the threads with what she remembers in a vain hope of creating a whole picture.

She remembers dancing and laughing and finishing each other’s sentences and showing him all her favorite places and looking into his eyes and feeling _secure_ and _loved_. But she also remembers that it was a cruel lie.

She remembers the supposed love of her life whispering _if only there was somebody who loved you_ , against her shivering blue lips. She remembers being left to die but escaping out onto the fjord and watching him raise a sword against Elsa. Anna remembers turning from Kristoff toward Elsa- only in time to save her sister by a hair’s breadth - maybe less. She remembers delivering a punch hard enough to knock him off the water. She remembers Elsa’s reassurance that there would be no more secrets – replaced by open gates and honesty.

The man she met last night, though, caring and concerned and guilty, and apparently her husband... the only way to reconcile it is the passage of years.

But how, _how, how, how_ did she go from all _that_ to accepting another proposal of marriage? How did she come to leave Arendelle - right as she and Elsa were reconnecting? The idea that Anna would have chosen to give everything up for a man, for _this man_... It doesn’t sit easily in her mind.

And Kristoff, after everything they went through together, for him to be absent suddenly is jarring and hurtful. A fresh would, for all that it is apparently years old. 

She slumps, resting her forehead against the cool stone wall.

It doesn’t make sense to Anna: that she would leave her life in Arendelle to marry and move away to what is essentially a remote cabin. If she was leaving Arendelle, _leaving Elsa_ , she would have wanted to travel, or live in a village somewhere with neighbors and a market and a church at least. Hans says they came here because they wanted quiet privacy, but - Anna has never wanted that, surely? But they have been here for two years now, apparently… what in the two years since the fjord could have moved Anna to so entirely change what she wanted?

There seems to be only one conclusion: he is leaving something out. Something major.

That question aside, there has been a niggling itch at the back of her mind, growing in intensity. Not the ongoing pain of her injury, something much scarier than a near fatal fall.

Anna looks into her distorted reflection in the windowpane, takes a deep, shaking breath, and vocalizes it:

"Have I been happy here?" she nearly whispers. Saying it out loud causes a cold stone to drop into her stomach.

She twiddles the still unfamiliar rings on her finger and watches the diamond shine in the light. She thinks of strawberry jam and cool, formal staff. Boring books and ugly wallpaper and ill-fitted dresses. No letters delivered for Anna, no friends come to visit Anna, no diary recording forgotten adventures or romantic interludes - grand or small. No children of their own, no nieces or nephews, no family at all.

Just another silent house and the looming sense that there is a secret that everyone but Anna knows.

{ - }

Hans’s office is neatly ordered but certainly lived in, especially when compared to the rest of the house. He has letters and papers and organized in stacks along his desk and his bookshelf is much less dusty than Anna’s own.

Hans has always been older than Anna but right now she feels the widened gap of four years’ lost memories. She feels like she’s at her father’s office again, a child peering around the door, drawn to confess some wrongdoing.

He waves her in as if he feels it too and an adult’s irritation flickers in Anna’s gut. It’s what she needs though and she finds herself more able to look him in the eye and speak in a clear voice.

She has learned one thing over the course of her adventure up the north mountain and back – communication works best _before_ the kingdom gets thrown into an eternal winter. (It’s not a universally applicable moral, but it was a hard-learned lesson.)

“Hans,” she says, settling into a chair off to the side of his great oak desk, “I would like for us to speak frankly, please.”

He shifts in his seat, rubbing a hand across his face and motions for her to continue.

 _What do you think I’m here about?_ she wonders. What problem does he see, aside from her missing memories?

“Well don’t keep me in suspense,” he prods with a big, charismatic show of teeth.

“Alright – I’m concerned that there is something that’s being kept from me.” _You haven’t mentioned Elsa, we haven’t a full staff, we’re living in a run-down house in the middle of nowhere… Why?_

He has his fingers steepled, pressed against his lips. He takes a moment to slowly interlace them.

“You’re very observant,” he admits. Anna feels a victorious rush mixed with no small worry. “I was hoping to avoid this, that your memories would return…”

“After, well, after everything,” he makes a circular gesture that she takes to encompass the minor issue of his attempt to take the throne of Arendelle by force and subsequent punishment, “you came to me, at first I imagine, because you were lonely. I’m sorry to put you through this again, Anna, but Elsa withdrew again. Old habits are hard to break, and with the duties of being Queen…”

“Oh,” Anna breathes, blinking away disappointed tears. He reaches out to clasp her hands in her lap.

“So, you began to spend your time with me,” he continues around a sympathetic smile. “The ice harvester had disappointed you, by leaving so suddenly, and I think, initially at least, you wanted to know how much of what we felt at the ball, that connection we both felt, how much of it had been real.”

Anna holds tightly both of his hands in return, leaning in and staring into his face.

“I assured you it had all been real. I acted out of fear, when I saw your sister's magic, allowing my darker impulses to lead, and in doing so, I lost the greatest chance of happiness I have had in my life. Well,” he brushes his thumb over her knuckles, “I almost lost it, anyway.”

 _Me_ , she thinks, stunned, _he means me._

“You are right, of course, that I have been concealing a painful truth from you.” He scoots forward in his chair so they are as close as can be, her two knees slotting in between his. “Your sister, she disapproved of our match. She gave you an ultimatum: stop seeing me or she would close the gates again.” Anna gasps, pulling both of her hands free to clutch at her face. “We married in secret and left Arendelle. The gates closed behind us. I am so sorry, Anna.”

“Wow,” Anna breathes, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. He reaches out to envelop her in his arms, and she leans gratefully against his chest. “Poor Elsa.”

Hans splutters and pulls back, clearly thrown. “Poor Elsa?” he repeats, incredulously.

Anna sniffs, wiping wetness from her cheeks. “Well, she’s all alone, again. For years now? How could I have left her…?”

Anna feels dazed, split between the room she occupies now talking with Hans and then that wide open, utterly empty ice castle. The beautiful prison Elsa had made herself, totally isolated. Full of doors.

“Anna,” Hans sounds quite stern now, “your sister refused to pay your dowry. She’s the reason we live like this!”

“But we’re together,” Anna repeats, frowning, “And Elsa’s got no one. I should go back or, or write to her at least. Do you have the letters, have we gotten anything from her I could see?”

Hans is sitting back now, staring at her in open disbelief. Anna’s stomach turns over unhappily – did she not care, last week, that Elsa had been left behind, alone once more? What memories could possibly make that an acceptable outcome?

“There are no letters,” he says, “or – you burned what letters you did have.”

“I burned Elsa’s letters?!” Anna repeats, disbelieving.

If she and Elsa lost touch, argued to the point of not speaking for years, surely Anna would treasure those letters she did have? What version of Elsa would write letters so vile that Anna wouldn’t be able to bear keeping them?

Hans has said something, but Anna blows right past it. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she interrupts, “I have to write to her, try again.”

"You were like this before, too. It's denial. She has never written you back, Anna," he says, apologetic. "I know you don't believe me, but I would save you from this hurt that I know is coming."

Anna swallows, the doubt is sharp and stinging - the day of their parent’s funeral, sobbing outside her sister's ever-closed door…

She sucks it all back in with a sniff. Anna’s not about to let Elsa be the first thing she ever gave up on. She stands, the motion forces him to scoot his chair backward to give her space.

"Thank you," she tells him, meeting his eyes so he can see how much she means it. "Thank you for telling me."

He seems aware - in the tenseness of his posture, the way his eyes are watching her face, tracking her responses - that he has admitted to being her second choice. Whatever loving life they may have built here together, the foundation is now openly Anna's desperation not to be alone. Not an easy thing to say, especially to a suspicious audience, and Anna wants him to know she is grateful.

He relaxes, the worried lines of his face loosening into a pleased smile.

She can see it for the first time since she woke - that handsome mix of charm and vulnerability, and before she can doubt herself, she swoops to drop a quick light kiss on his cheek.

She gets a definite thrill from leaving the room before he has a chance to recover himself.

{ - }

_Dear Elsa,_

Anna chews her pen and gets ink on her chin. Wipes it away and smears all over her fingers. It dries and still she hasn't thought of how to phrase her first sentence.

She doesn't even know what she wants to say.

She starts with an explanation. _I fell, last week. Or so I’m told._ … She spends some time detailing her injury, she repeats what Hans has told her about the doctor. Rambling, really. A child sitting outside Elsa’s door and complaining about the governess.

_Hans tells me I chose exile with him over Arendelle. He says you and I don’t talk, that you closed the gates again._

It takes a long time to write those two sentences out.

But she knows, suddenly, what she needs to say.

_If you meant it, when you said we would be open and honest, please write me back. I feel so lost and alone. I don’t understand how this has happened, how I got here. Please write me back, Elsa. It feels like I've gone mad. I just need a word from you and I am sure I will feel more settled. Even if you just write to tell me it is all true. That you don’t want us to be sisters. Then I will know that I chose this. I'll l know why._

The letter is smudged, she's cried on it and crossed bits out. She can't send it, not like this. She'll rewrite it, a cleaner, less emotional version. She'll slow down and keep her handwriting neater. Make it sound less desperate, less needy.

But not today. She can't face sanitizing it today.

Anna folds the letter away, pushing it to the back of a draw where she can avoid it for the moment, and stands to go and look out over the forest again.

Anna has been lonely enough to marry Hans once before. If Elsa truly withdrew, if nothing came of her flirtation with Kristoff, if Elsa closed the gates again… Anna could see herself falling back into that pattern, choosing this isolation over the other.

Earlier today she had asked herself a question. Maybe she has been happy _enough_ here. Happy, as compared to the alternative.

There is a version, she supposes. Deeply loved by her husband, surrounded by a loving family of their own forging - trekking the forest together, learning their favorite routes, sharing the night sky. Childish as it may be, that doesn't seem to be the relationship she has with Hans.

But as things stand, isolated and injured and under doctor's orders not to strain herself- Anna feels as alone as she has since even her parents died.

She notices suddenly how she has slumped down, as though a heavy weight was bearing down on her shoulders. She straightens her spine and sets her jaw.

She changes her earlier question, makes herself say it properly, not whispered like a secret.

"How can I _become_ happy here?"

This head injury, she determines, it is a chance to re-evaluate her life, her choices, her happiness. She will write to Elsa. She will befriend Bertha and Wallace. Perhaps they can reach out to the Westergaaurds, seek some family connection there - twelve brothers, surely one of them will be willing! She can talk to Hans, they can re-build their connection; they can go for walks, they can eat their meals together, they can share their favorite books. She will start a diary again and Anna will build a life that is worth recording.

{ - }

Anna wakes the next morning and hardly needs Bertha to help her dress. Her shoulder doesn't bother her so much, which is nice. She feels much more herself in her old, loose braids.

It seems like she only has two or three dresses, one nicer than the others, which don't fit nearly so well, but she supposes this is part of not living in a castle.  
Anna tells Bertha she feels quite well enough to eat at the table for breakfast and inquires if Hans has eaten yet. She doesn't know his routine; if he wakes early, if he skips breakfast altogether. So much is just - gone. As if she never knew it.

Luckily, he is at the table still, reading the newspaper and he shares a few interesting passages as she eats her boiled egg. It feels pleasantly domestic. The last few years, that Anna remembers anyway, she has taken breakfast alone more often than not. This is a nice glimpse of what might have become a routine for them.

He asks after her health, about her head and her shoulder.

“Better, thank you,” she tells him, reaching up to tug at the fraying ends of the gauze, “the bandaging is starting to itch, though. I think it may have shifted in the night?”

“Don’t touch it,” he cautions, catching her wrist and pulling her hand away. “We must leave the doctor’s work alone.”

Anna has a fair few questions about that, now that they’re on the subject, and she opens her mouth to ask, but he cuts her off, looking out of the large bay windows and suggesting, “It looks like a fine day and I know how you hate being cooped up. What do you say to a carriage ride down the lane? The area is quite beautiful.”

"Oh," she says, surprised but certainly willing, "yes! Absolutely, that sounds wonderful!”

"My Anna," he says with a chuckle, standing from the table, "always such a terrible patient. I’ll go and speak to Wallace about it."

On his way past he leans down into her space to kiss her forehead. Anna holds herself still for the kiss. It's likely just habit for him, but to Anna his lips feel unfamiliar and unwelcome and she wants to rub the spot where he touched. But she was the first one to do it, kissing his cheek yesterday. It would be rude and confusing for him if she started objecting now.

"Thank you,” she says, smiling pleasantly, holding her own hands tightly in her lap, “let me know when we are ready to go.”

_I’ll be on my shelf._

{ - }

The carriage is enclosed, but Anna can observe through the window. The road from their house joins what is clearly a main route through the forest, the route stretching away to the right and left.

Without any kind of prompting from Hans, Wallace takes them along the left-hand path.

The motion of the carriage along the uneven country roads aggravates her headache fiercely, but it is wonderful to be out of the house. Their home is situated in a mountainous region, with heavy forests where they have not been cleared for fields. Hans points to the east for the nearest market town and north over the mountains for Arendelle and the sea.

“Are we going anywhere in particular?” Anna asks.

“No, I just thought perhaps you would like to see the forest.”

He says it very gallantly, and Anna tries to gush appropriately as they go. It’s certainly pretty, but the trees grow thick and close, overhanging the road and creating a damp, claustrophobic feel. Anna has always preferred wide open, bright, sunny spaces.

She concentrates very hard on looking out the window, but no rush of memories comes. They don't come across any others along the road, going in either direction. She slumps, tired and defeated and sad. She struggles with the idea that she would choose to live so far from any other neighbors, but she now knows there were other considerations at play.

"Would you like to lean against me?" her husband offers, watching her closely. "I'll direct Wallace to head back to the house."

Anna looks at him for a moment – his face is drawn into a worried frown, but there’s something pleased about his expression. He’s happy, she supposes, spending time together, helping her get out of the house. It was kind of him to do, even if she’s not actually feeling much better for the trip.

She swallows once, then scoots deliberately along the bench so she can rest against his shoulder. It takes her a moment to find a comfortable position - she's even forgotten how to sit alongside her husband.

She can do this, she thinks, determined. This will work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for blood and a description of a wound, so if that is uncomfortable for you, you can skip it fairly easily when Anna starts untying her bandages. (Thanks Liv for your advice!)
> 
> My original plan was to post this chapter on Halloween whoops happy holidays everyone ♡

Anna wakes on the morning of the fifth consecutive day she can remember. It’s not a shock, anymore, to wake up in a room decorated in beige and blues, where none of her windows face the morning sun. She’s getting used to the way this older version of her body seems to have adjusted and become a wretched morning person, blinking into wakefulness as Bertha bustles in with tea. 

They have a routine now, or, the beginnings of one - remnants of one? - Anna takes her tea alone while Bertha sees to setting up breakfast downstairs. More and more each day, Anna gets herself out of bed and at least partially dressed by the time Bertha returns. Thankfully, her shoulder isn’t pulling quite so badly and she can raise her hand above her head as long as she’s careful and slow. 

After breakfast, Hans invites Anna to walk in the garden with him. They follow a paved pathway, wide enough for a couple to walk side-by-side. The first time they walked together, Hans had offered his arm, and the fit of her fingers into the crook of his arm is becoming familiar. It is the closest to a sense of rightness Anna has been able to find in this life of hers - walking through the morning sunshine arm-in-arm with a prince, chatting idly about the garden. 

The garden backs up against the forest's edge, separated by a tall hedge with a gate in the middle, which leads to all sorts of wildlife making use of their space. Anna wants to commission a stone birdbath, when they are next in town, like the one she had in the castle. 

Anna spends her afternoons alone but they eat dinner together in the evening - with a single exception: a few days ago a letter had arrived for Hans and he had left the table, claiming urgent business. He did not join her in the sitting room that evening and no explanation had been given for his absence. She wants to inquire but hesitancy holds her indignant curiosity - they have come to an understanding since their talk in the study and she is determined to keep this new peace. 

She works on her letter to Elsa, or sits in the windowsill and stares out at the mountains rising in the distance over the treeline. She naps, sometimes, or paces. She doesn’t venture out into the house much, not on her own. Everyone is too on edge, watching her. She knows they’re worried because of her head injury, but it’s uncomfortable to say the least. 

It takes a few afternoons to get the letter just right. She doesn’t want to sound too stiff and formal, but also not over-casual or saccharine either. In the end, she’s not _happy_ with the result, but she wants it sent and she can recognize she’s never going to feel great about this particular missive.

Anna finds she can’t quite persuade herself to get rid of the original draft. It’s messy and overemotional and confused, but she’s always been a hoarder of correspondence. She never had much, of course, but whenever Anna did get a letter, she’d keep it.

It seems very strange that she hasn’t amassed a new trove of letters from her life here, stranger still that she would have burned what she did have from Elsa. Whatever reasons she had, for now, are lost to her memories, so until something resurfaces, she’s going to hold on.

Anna doesn’t like the idea of anyone else seeing the letter though, even by accident, so she decides to put it away. She picks a slim, pinkish book with a title she recognizes: _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. Anna folds the paper twice and then slides it in among the pages. There – safe and sound.

At dinner that evening, Anna gives Hans the final version, ready for posting. He promises it will go out tomorrow morning.

After dinner, they retire to the sitting room. Anna works on her needlepoint and Hans continues with his reading.

She’s begun a new project, one in-keeping with this new life; she’s re-upholstering the pillows for the receiving room. Her pattern is blues and white snowflakes, which makes for complicated stitching, but it passes the time and the effect will be very festive as Yule approaches. 

Another Yule without her sister. She frowns down harder at the hoop. Across the room, Hans turns a page. Anna bites her lip against the silence. 

{ - } 

"I was thinking today we could try walking out past the hedges," she offers at breakfast the next morning, scraping butter along a nice warm scone. "I'd like to see the woods."

He frowns at her over the edge of his newspaper. 

"Why would we do that?" 

A flicker of upset but Anna pushes through. "Well, we must have gone walking there a dozen times before…?" As far as she's concerned, that's the only real upside to living out in the countryside like this - access to the countryside. 

Across the table her husband visibly turns his attention back to the paper. Unobserved, Anna clenches her jaw. 

"I'm not sure it's a good idea, given your health," he says, unapologetic, "perhaps another time."

She struggles with herself for a moment, caught between an irritated instinct to needle and push - _were you not in the habit of walking with me, husband_? - or an older habit of placid acceptance. 

Anna chews her mouthful more than thoroughly and then changes the subject. 

"When is the doctor returning?" she asks, fiddling with the remains of her breakfast. 

“Hmm?” 

“The doctor,” she repeats, “did he say when we should expect to see him next?”

“Oh, uh,” Hans looks rather caught off guard for a moment, he is not generally one to fumble his words like this, “well, mostly he said to make sure you rest as much as possible, not to let you strain yourself.”

“Yes,” Anna agrees, at her upper limit of the advice _don’t strain yourself_ , “but you said, when I first woke up, that the doctor had said there was only a risk of memory loss with a head injury. Surely now that I have lost four years worth, we need to follow up with him…? It’s been almost a week, now.”

“Ah, yes. I see what you mean. Well, the problem is - we haven’t any way to contact him.”

“I’m sorry?” she says, bewildered. 

“Yes, the village, you see, it’s too small to host it’s own doctor, but there was one staying there at the time, and he’s gone on now. A traveling doctor, you know. It’s fairly common in rural towns.”

Properly perturbed now, Anna holds up a hand to quiet him. “Wait, what? You mean to say that the man who examined me wasn’t actually _our_ doctor? It was a stranger who happened to be in the area on the day I fell down a flight of stairs? And then he left town, without checking in?”

Worried, she lifts her hand to the bandage around her head, now very concerned about the state of affairs under all that gauze. She meets Hans’ eye, her hurt morphing into anger. “Your wife lost four years and you didn’t have any further plan to get another medical opinion?” 

The newspaper wrinkles in his clenched fist. “Of course I have - I’ve written to the larger town nearby asking them to send someone. We haven’t heard back yet.” 

It strikes Anna that he may very well be lying to her. But he’ll send the letter now, that’s for sure. She will make sure to follow up closely. Carefully placing her dirty knife and fork on her plate, she rises from her seat. 

“I’ll be in the garden, if Bertha needs me.” 

And she walks out, without a backward glance. He does not move to follow her. 

{ - }

It always feels worse, to be angry indoors than out. For as long as Anna can remember she has rushed outdoors to find peace and calm down, trapped indoors she wallows. 

She likes their garden. It's quite large and it has an overgrown quality to it that makes it feel almost like a wild field, compared to the structured design of the Arendelle palace garden. 

Naturally she heads right for the tall hedge gate. A sense of satisfactory defiance boils into a frustrated shout when she finds it locked. 

Is their garden gate locked, she wonders, only recently, on account of her health? Or does her husband disapprove of a wife who wishes to go walking in the woods? 

How does she stand this life of hers?

Unwilling to go back inside and inquire about a gate key, Anna sets off along the garden path at a brisk pace. Directionless, her anger doesn't burn away as it usually might. Instead a despondent feeling drives her to settle on the ground at the base of a tree over by their little pond, making sure to sit so she isn't facing the windows of the large house. 

It isn’t the right time in the season for tadpoles yet, and Hans had claimed he didn't notice if they had frogs last year. 

Anna sighs and puts her head down on her knees. Her skirts are already muddied from sitting so close to the water, so she sticks her hand in and scoops out some scummy pond reeds. She amuses herself arranging them into a green face and hairdo for a large stone nearby. A childhood habit born of loneliness, making herself a playmate, so she forgives herself the immature impulse, though she suspects she'll regret it when the time comes to hand her sodden and muddy dress over to Bertha. 

She laughs to herself - her little stone friend looks like one of Kristoff's trolls. _Love experts,_ she remembers, fondly. Well, she could certainly use the advice. 

When the realization comes it falls out of the clear blue sky, and has her on her feet and fairly running back to the house. 

{ - }

Hans is in his study, bent over her desk and writing when she bursts in without knocking. He startles badly, sending papers and ink sprawling. 

"Anna! What - !"

"Oh!" She exclaims, flapping her arms exuberantly, "Oh Hans - the trolls, Hans, the trolls!" 

"Trolls?" he repeats, not paying her his full attention, still attending to his ruined papers.

"Yes! Yes, don't you see! The trolls!" 

"Anna," he turns to her finally, "are you having some kind of fit? Do you need to sit down?" 

"No, I know how to get my memories back! I can't believe we didn't think of it sooner - the trolls!" She can see the road from his office with the mountains beyond, and she points outward, to the horizon. 

"What trolls, what are you talking about?" he snaps, exasperated. 

"The rock trolls, in the mountains. They can do magic - memory magic! They've done it before, to me even!" 

He's staring at her agape, his one hand upon his chin, and a deep, confused frown. 

"Memory magic?" he repeats slowly, with a stilted kind of laugh, "Anna, you hit your head, there's no memory magic." 

He isn't matching her excitement, so Anna's head is slowly returning from the clouds. His reaction doesn't make sense.

"No, I know," she says, "I mean when I was a kid. The trolls erased my memories of Elsa's powers… There's no way I wouldn't have told you about this…?" 

"Of course you have. That's not what I said - there's nothing magical about you losing your memory, so they wouldn't be able to help."

Anna frowns, wrong-footed by his lackluster response to what she considers to be very good news. "Well I'm not sure what would make you so certain."

It's an uncomfortable thing, for Anna, the shape of an argument coming into sharp, sudden focus. She can see it in his face. 

"No," he says, crossing his arms and turning so he is looking back to his desk. "No, Anna it's crazy. We can't risk any kind of magic, or travel!" 

"Don't you think that's my decision to make?" 

"You're not in your right mind," he dismisses, "it isn’t safe and I won't take this risk." 

"I'm not saying we should start loading the carriages!" she protests, working very hard at not stamping her feet petulantly, "but when the doctor comes, it's worth speaking to him-"

"You want to explain about magic memory trolls to a qualified medical doctor?" Hans laughs, "well he won't question the head injury…" 

Stung, Anna snaps back, "No, I meant we can ask about it being safe for me to spend a few days traveling!" 

"No doctor is going to advise you to go traipsing up and down the mountains - do you even know how to find them?" 

"No but - Kristoff does! He'll show us." 

Hans throws his hands up in the air and twirls away, stalking a few paces away. "And there it is."

"What?" she says, with a sinking feeling. 

"You want to go and find the ice harvester, that's what this is about."

Anna inflates with so much righteous anger she feels her chest swell with it. She could punch him. Again. 

"I am trying to get my memories back. The trolls are a good idea. We should talk to them, at least." 

"And the only way to get there is through him, naturally." Hans sneers. 

Anna squints at him. 

"Why are you trying to make this about Kristoff? You said it never went anywhere, anyway. That he left, like right after everything…" 

She realizes suddenly, that he may have lied to her about that, as well... For him to be so jealous, years later - it strikes her as strange. 

"Is that not true?" she asks. 

"Oh, and now I'm a liar," he snaps. "When are you going to accept that you can trust me, Anna? I'm your husband, and I want what's best for you." 

But you didn't write to a doctor, she thinks, and you don't want me to go to the trolls. 

He reaches out for her hand, but she pulls away. She feels stung by his reaction. He has asked so much trust from her this last week and she has done her best to give it, but now - now that Anna needs him to trust her...! Possessive and bad tempered and petulant. 

"We should talk about this more later," she says. They're not getting anywhere right now.

He calls after her this time, but she doesn’t turn and he doesn’t follow. 

{ - } 

Anna paces the length of her bedroom, breathing heavily. One part of her wants to cry; confused and hurt and sad and despairing. The other part is furious, _furious_ that some past version of herself made this choice, a choice she cannot even remember making - to choose the kind of man who, when the opportunity presented itself, would kill people to gain power for himself. So what if he failed and now he regrets it; of course he has turned out to be a poor husband. 

Anna huffs and wipes angry tears from her face. The ring, the symbol she’s been carrying of this strange new life, catches on her skin. In a fit of pique, she pulls it off and sets it down on the polished wooden surface of the bedside table.

The central stone gleems at her in the sunlight, so she brushes it into the draw and fairly slams it closed again.

She feels better, with it off. Lighter. More able to consider other options. 

Anna sits at her desk and begins drafting a letter to Elsa. 

Not long after, Bertha arrives with Anna's tea and sets it down on the edge of the writing desk just like she does every afternoon. Anna thanks her, and waits until Bertha leaves to enact her plan. 

She fetches the small wash basin from her attached bathroom and fills it with hot water. She clears a space on her vanity and sets the bowl and towel down in front of her mirror. Anna stares back at herself unhappily for a moment and then squares her shoulders, reaching up to find the tie in the linen wrapping around her head. 

She unwinds the wrapping and finds that blood has soaked through the gauze which has dried onto her temple. She uses the scissors from her sewing kit to remove the bloodied section at the end and then sets aside the clean length in case she needs to use it again. 

Anna winces, her lower lip held tight between her teeth as she peels away the dried, bloody gauze. It’s all crusted, which makes for a painfuly slow process. Fresh blood wells up at the edges, where the scab has been disturbed.

When she finally has the gauze free, she can see a matted streak of hair running from her temple to just above the back of her left ear. She pokes at it a few times, but not so hard as to hurt.

She pulls a section of clean fabric from her sewing box and dips it into the still-warm water. She spends some time danning and wiping until the area around her temple is clean again. 

Anna doesn’t know anything, really, about wounds and bandages. Not serious ones, anyway. She wants a bath, to properly soak and scrub her hair but at the very least she knows not to do that.

She sits in front of the mirror holding her folded, clean tea towel against her sluggishly bleeding temple. She's going to need to wrap it again, or else risk bleeding all over the place. She bites her lip, considering. It will be almost impossible, by herself, but she doesn't fancy ringing the bell for Bertha and having the maid run to Hans. 

Her first attempt fails abysmally. She tries again, this time holding the gauze in place with one hand and tucking the end of the linen wrap under her thumb. With her free hand she unspools the fabric in a ring, tight against her head. Her hair makes it hard, and the whole thing shifts if she is too tight or too loose. She manages to wrap around a few times but when she lets go of the gauze to try and tie the two ends together, the whole thing falls in bloodied ribbons around her shoulders. 

The frustration brings tears to her eyes. She can't get it on her own, and there is no one here who she can ask for help, not truly. 

So Anna takes herself to bed, setting herself up so her tea towel is still pressed against the wound. It's already bleeding less and less. 

Air, she decides. A night exposed to the air won't hurt anything too badly - ? And then tomorrow she can get help wrapping it again if needed. 

She curls up under her covers, pulling the blankets high and faces away from the window. She’s still there when Bertha comes to announce dinner, so the maid collects the scattered tea tray and leaves quietly. 

Anna comes to a decision that night. She’s not going to stay here. 

The head injury, losing her memories - it’s a gift. A chance to evaluate things and change the course. What’s that phrase - ? When the temperature rises slowly, lobsters don’t realize the water is boiling. 

She’ll leave, go back to Arendelle. She’ll finish her letter tomorrow, asking about returning, but even if nothing comes back, she’ll pack her things and go. She and Hans, their marriage - well, she can evaluate what she wants with a clear head and some distance. 

Anna is awake well into the night, running scenarios in her mind. The speech she needs to give Hans, to make him understand. What she needs to say to Elsa. What Anna herself needs to hear, what she needs to remember about what she wants, about what she has _always_ wanted for her life. 

Eventually, she falls asleep, mind abuzz with plans for the future. 

{ - }

_It is evening in Arendelle. Anna is walking alongside a younger, smiling woman she does not recognize. They are laughing, elbows linked and heads bent in giddy conversation, strolling along the water. Beyond them, the fjord twinkles under the setting sun._

_They are intercepted by an older woman, frantic and spluttering._

_“My son!” she gasps, “Have you seen my son? He was playing along the docks!”_

_It is getting darker by the moment. Urgently, Anna sends her companion off to fetch help._

_“Show me where you last saw him,” she tells the distraught mother, determined now._

_“Thank you, Princess,” she gushes. The woman leads Anna down a long wooden pier…_

{ - }

"Your bandages, Princess!" Bertha exclaims, immediately when Anna sits up in bed next morning. 

Oh yes - in all the turmoil, Anna had quite forgotten. She reaches up to touch her temple lightly with two fingers, but they come away quite dry. Her pillow is a little stained, and she likely needs a wash again, the tea towel certainly is ruined, but she's pleased with the result of her painstaking effort. 

"Yes," she agrees. She can feel how her eyes are puffy still, from a late night spent crying, but her brain itches for a different reason this morning. 

“Do you have a son, Bertha?” Anna asks, shifting so she is sitting upright against her pillows. 

“A son?” Bertha repeats, coming to stand with the tray next to Anna's bed. 

“Yes, I had a very strange dream,” Anna explains, shifting so she's sitting up properly in bed. “Well, it wasn’t the dream that was strange – more that, now I’m awake, I feel strangely about the dream…”

Bertha hasn’t moved, still standing at the bedside, holding her tray, listening. Anna prattles on, “Only I wondered if perhaps it was a memory? We were looking for your son down by the harbor…”

“Are you not wearing your ring, Princess?” Bertha interrupts, looking quite stricken, “Awful bad luck, a married woman taking off her wedding ring!”

Anna’s hands flutter about awkwardly – ringless, still. She laughs, hoping she sounds jovial and carefree, rather than defensive.

“Well, I assume I was wearing it when I fell down the stairs and hit my head hard enough to knock four years of memories out!”

She quickly pivots away from this blatant sign of marital trouble.

“But you haven’t said: we were looking for a boy - I’m sure you said he was your son? – I was checking on one of the boats, to see if he was hidden on the deck… Was Wallace there? I saw Walla-aahhhhhh-!”

Anna scrambles along the bed, away from the arc of hot tea that has been suddenly spilled across her lap. Bertha is there immediately, collecting the tray and cups and saucers.

“Oh, Princess, I’m so sorry! I am so, so sorry. Are you alright?”

The thick blankets absorbed most of the heat, luckily Anna had not been sitting on top of them, though she can feel the heat, still.

“Oh, I’m fine, not to worry. What happened - did you trip?”

Bertha is already hurrying toward the door, clutching the haphazard collection of china against her apron.

“I’ll bring you another,” she promises, “I shall be right back!”

The door clicks shut behind her, leaving Anna alone with her thoughts.

Her heart is racing. Anna feels an urgency, suddenly, a certainty that she doesn’t have much time. This directionless call to action propels her out of her stained bed and she comes to stand in the middle of her room in a damp nightdress, breathing hard.

Are her memories returning?

Who was she walking with, in her dream? The answer comes easily, now: Hattie. Hattie had worked in the castle for years - since they had started hiring new staff. After the gates opened.

Anna and Hattie were friends. Good friends. There was a boy, a merchant’s son, Hattie was interested in that boy, but she was too nervous to say hello, so she and Anna had spent the afternoon walking in giggling circles around the market, catching glimpses of him.

When the market closed, Anna and Hattie had gone down to the deserted harbor to talk privately. When Bertha approached, crying about a missing boy, Anna had sent Hattie to the market to gather a search party, and then to go on to the castle to fetch Elsa, and Kristoff.

Anna marches to the closet, an anxious shiver crawling up her spine and over her shoulder.

Something is wrong here. She needs to leave. There is nothing for her here anyway. Nothing even of hers that she would be sorry to leave behind. But potentially everything to return home for. 

Anna is dressed, crouched down and lacing her boots when there is a sharp knock at the door. Hans, rather than a tea-laden Bertha. Anna isn’t surprised.

She stands and sets her shoulders, renewed confidence crystalizing in her heart: Hans is a liar, and he isn’t going to convince her to stay. 

They watch each other for a moment, evaluating. He can see it in her face, she knows he can.

“Anna - ” he starts, condescension lacing his tone already.

She interrupts him. “I’m going back to Arendelle.”

“Because you had a dream?” he asks, patronizing, like she's being childish and stupid. 

“Not because I had a dream,” she insists, though her dream has shaken her. It’s a memory, she’s sure of it, and when she tugs at the strands, more memories come loose.

“Let's talk about it,” he offers, stepping closer with his palms held wide, “You aren’t well.”

“I’ll be sure to see a physician when I get there,” she snarks with acid in her voice, and his open palms close into angry fists.

“I told you - the gates of Arendelle are closed, and you are lucky to be on this side!” he snaps back. “Your sister will not see you.”

“Then something is obviously wrong and I must go back!”

“You must give your sister time to respond to your letter. Another week – no need to make a rash decision while your health is still recovering. We can make arrangements, travel together…” he wheedles.

Everything he says makes sense. The rational thing to do would be to wait. But –

“Does Bertha have a son?”

“I’m sorry?” he asks, apparently thrown by the sudden change in topic.

“Does Bertha have a son?” she repeats slowly and clearly.

She sees it in the brief widening of his gleaming green eyes. He doesn’t know. Or – he does know, but he doesn’t know if Anna does.

 _Liar_.

“Anna,” he pivots, “what does that have to do with anything? Come now, let's get you back into bed, you have a head injury, remember? You're not making sense…”

He tries to usher her back but she moves in a wide arc, keeping his distance.

“Does Bertha have a son, Hans.”

“How should I know,” he says, with an exasperated sigh.

“She’s worked in your house for two years,” says Anna, “You don’t know if she has children?”

“You get back into bed, I’ll call her up with some tea and we can ask her, how’s that?”

Anna stares at him for a moment. There is strain around his eyes, his throat bobs when he swallows convulsively. He looks stressed. Stressed and tired and tense.

Maybe, she thinks, maybe it's the stress of four years in exile. A wife who suddenly doesn’t trust you. Being forced to justify the mediocre happiness you have built to fresh eyes.

A muscle jumps in his tightly clamped jaw, and maybe, she thinks, maybe it's something worse.

“You’ve asked me to trust you,” she says, channeling Elsa and her father and mother with everything she has, “and if it is true, if you want me to believe that you love me, you will accept that I am leaving and trust that I will come back.”

“No,” he says, standing to his full height now, his voice shifting in a chillingly familiar way, “You aren’t going anywhere.”

“You can’t stop me,” she says, trying to keep her confidence, gain some momentum toward the door. He blocks her movement, stepping into her path. “Let – let me pass!” she orders, a new shrillness creeping into her voice.

“Oh, Anna. Let’s try this again, shall we?” he says, advancing on her with menace written into every line of his body.

Anna backs up a few steps, eyes frantically cutting to the window, but it’s too late.

{ - }

The first thing Anna sees when she opens her eyes is the navy blue canopy hanging over the bed. She frowns, confused. It’s not her bed, the sheets are blue and the pillow is lumpy in all the wrong places. She’s laid out on her back rather than curled up like she usually is when she wakes. She pushes herself up on her forearms to look about the unfamiliar room and gasps in surprised pain as her weight shifts onto her wrist - it’s wrapped in a cast almost all the way up to her elbow. 

“Anna?” comes a voice from the side of the bed. She turns and it’s Prince Hans, from the coronation. But he’s changed out of his formal wear, and what on earth is he doing in the room while she sleeps?

“Where am I?” she asks, hesitant, “What happened?” 

He frowns, concerned and confused. “What do you mean? You’re home, Anna.” 


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing Anna sees when she opens her eyes is the navy blue canopy hanging over the bed. She frowns, confused. It’s not her bed, the sheets are blue and the pillow is lumpy in all the wrong places. She’s laid out on her back rather than curled up like she usually is when she wakes. She pushes herself up on her forearms to look about the unfamiliar room and gasps in surprised pain as her weight shifts onto her wrist - it’s wrapped in a cast almost all the way up to her elbow. 

“Anna?” comes a voice from the side of the bed. She turns and it’s Prince Hans, from the coronation. But he’s changed out of his formal wear, and what on earth is he doing in the room while she sleeps?

“Where am I?” she asks, hesitant, “What happened?” 

He frowns, concerned and confused. “What do you mean? You’re home, Anna.” 

She frowns, peering around. It's no room she's ever seen in the castle and if she was home, why wouldn't she be in her own bed?

Bracing on her good hand and cradling her still-throbbing one close, she starts scooting to the opposite side of the bed from where he is. 

He starts to reach for her, speaking in a low, soothing tone. 

"Be careful, you hit your head earlier, don't try to stand, okay?"

She reaches up to brush the tips of her fingers along her hairline.

“I - hit my head?” she asks. 

His mouth drops open and his hands move to clutch at his chin. “Oh, Anna, please tell me you remember.” She can’t quite make out his face in the gloom, but he sounds just about as shaken as she feels. 

Anna feels the nervous tremor in her voice as she replies, “...remember what?”

He drops heavily into the armchair, sounding as though all the air has been punched out of him. “The doctor said this could happen, but I didn’t believe him. No, no, no...” he trails off, miserably. 

Anna is still feeling along the length of bandaging at her temple, the thick, hard splint running up the length of her forearm and holding her wrist steady. Something glints in her peripheral vision, drawing her attention back to Hans - he’s offering a small handheld mirror out to her across the bed. 

“You had an accident,” he says, “You hit your head in the stairwell. You’ve been asleep for days. Anna, what is the last thing you remember?” 

Anna tries to summon any memory of what happened to her, but there’s nothing - a dark void and a piercing headache when she focuses too hard on breaking through. That's the head injury, she supposes. 

She lifts the mirror and peers at herself in the low light. The bandage looks as large as it feels, but she’s distracted quickly by the ring gleaming at her from where she’s holding the mirror in her good hand. 

She drops the mirror and brings her own hand closer, inspecting what is very clearly a wedding ring. 

From her bedside, Hans shuffles in his seat. 

“Why are you in my room?” she asks, “where did you say we are?” 

“I said you’re home,” he says, watching her closely, “our home.”

Anna looks back toward the large window closest to her bed. It’s dark still, but she has the sense of a different skyline, certainly she is much lower to the ground than her usual bedroom. Not Arendelle castle then. 

She looks back to Hans, who frowns, worriedly. “You don’t remember me?” he asks, “Not at all?” 

“Prince Hans,” she offers, suddenly shy. “We met at Elsa’s coronation.” 

“And, what about after that?” he presses. 

“We left the party,” she says, blushing, looking down at her hand and rubbing at the smooth stone in the center of the ring with the pad of her index finger. She wants to take it off, inspect it properly, but her right hand is wrapped too thoroughly. “We were dancing. I showed you around the castle, around Arendelle…” 

“And Elsa?” he asks, “do you remember talking to Elsa?” 

Anna frowns, trying hard. “Elsa and I talked a little, but that was before I saw you at the ball. Elsa…” Now Anna looks away properly, turning her head so she’s looking far out through the window into the night. She swallows, then admits, “Elsa and I don’t really talk.” 

“Good,” he says, “that’s good - I mean, now we know where your memories leave off. Anna, I’m sorry but, it’s been four years since then.” 

"WHAT!" Anna flails, struggling briefly with the bedcovers - she feels strongly that she needs to be standing in order to process that kind of information - but she quickly gets a sharp reminder not to put weight on her injured wrist. "Ah!" she gasps, cradling it close once more, breathing through her nose until the pain ebbs. 

Hans has been watching her with a very sad expression. 

"So we're - married?" she only half asks. 

He nods, moving now to sit on the edge of her bed. "It may not be the story you are imagining, though." 

"What do you mean?" 

"That night, at the Coronation, you took me up to a waterfall," he tells her, "it was beautiful under the moonlight, and I proposed!" He laughs, "I surprised myself even, but you made me the happiest man alive when you said yes." 

Anna can picture it - she knows the waterfall he means, can perfectly imagine the moment. 

"I wish I could remember that," she tells him. He grins at her. 

"We talked about it - it would have been a long engagement. I would have stayed in Arendelle, to give everyone a chance to get used to me. Really, we probably should have kept it quiet," he admits, "but we were so excited. We went to your sister to tell her we were engaged and… she said no. She forbade the marriage and gave the order to close the gates, immediately. You told her that you couldn't live like that anymore, and she told you to leave." Anna gasps, tears welling in her eyes, the sting of fresh, icy hurt in her chest. She knew she and Elsa had a kind of distanced sisterhood, but - to send Anna away? 

Hans goes on. "So, you left with me, that same night. There was a bit of a diplomatic incident about it actually, my father had to formally disown me," Anna turns wide, guilty eyes on him, but he waves it away, "he never liked me much. The important thing is we didn't let them keep us apart." He reaches over the bed to place his bare hand on hers. It's the first time that she can remember - he wore gloves when they met. 

Anna nods. She can't imagine someone loving her enough for that. It's overwhelming. 

The series of blows - all this time believing Elsa must care, must want her, only to be proven so spectacularly wrong, and then to find she has been married and living the life of her dreams outside the castle gates with a prince who so resolutely _chose her_ , but she can't remember any of it - combined with a pounding headache...

"Anna?" prompts Hans after a little bit of quiet, pulling his hand away and startling her out of her reverie, "you should sleep." 

"Will you stay?" she asks him, sniffling and very badly not wanting to be left alone behind a closed door. 

"Of course," he says. "Then in the morning we will have the doctor come and see you." 

Hans joins her in the bed but he stays on top of the covers, which she is grateful for. There is no instinct to cuddle close - she's lost all those memories. But he is a gentleman and he stays on his side. 

Just having him there though, is a comfort, and Anna soon falls back to sleep. 

{ - } 

When Anna wakes, she is alone. 

She comes alert more quickly than she is used to, probably because part of her is expecting to wake up beneath her familiar, rose-shaded canopy having simply had an upsetting dream.

Blue, still. And a clearer view through the windows in the sunlight at a foreign horizon; a mass of trees leading to a far-off mountain and no fjord in sight. 

Hans has left. Anna doesn’t know how long he stayed - it was good of him to stay as long as he did, really! Since her parents died, she’s often wished to have someone else there through the nights - but the empty side where he had been has her lower lip wobbling somewhat. 

She does not get long to dwell, however. It turns out she must have been awoken by the approach of a maid, she guesses, who knocks sharply and then bustles in without waiting for a call. 

"Good morning, Anna!" The woman greets her around a straining smile. Anna supposes she must look a bit of a mess. She always does, in the mornings, and that's without all the headwrappings. 

"Hello," she waves awkwardly from her spot in the bed, still a little groggy but aware enough not to try and clamber across the wide mattress unassisted again. "I'm afraid I don't -" 

"Oh your husband caught me up, we are all just glad you're still with us! It's dreadful - that staircase. Now, come along," she reaches out across the bed to take Anna's good hand and keeps her steady as she maneuvers to the edge. 

"Thank you," says Anna, sitting on the edge, "I'm feeling quite well."

"I am glad. Now, my name is Bertha, I'm the housekeeper here. Usually you take care of all your morning ablutions yourself, but as you've hurt yourself, I'll be coming by in the morning and evening to help get you set." 

It's almost thrilling - the idea that she has been living without a maid. It makes her feel very grown up and independent, though she typically relies on them more for companionship than dressing. 

But, with her arm as it is; "yes," she says, grateful, "I appreciate your help." 

Bertha claps, pleased. "Well, best not get you up and dressed until the doctor has seen you. I'll let him know you're awake and ready."

"Oh! Yes, thank you." 

A tense knot of worry slides away - at least she will be able to get a medical opinion without delay! 

When he arrives, the doctor is portly and short, with whiskers on his face in the fashion of the older generation in Arendelle. 

"Doctor Wallace," he introduces, striding forward and placing his briefcase down on the surface of her bed. "How are we feeling today?" 

He looks into her eyes, has her watch his finger move without moving her head, and rotates her head in a circle to check for pain or stiffness - all things she remembered precious doctors doing for her often enough as a rambunctious child. 

"All seems well enough," he declares, "as it is an injury to your head, there isn't much else we can do." 

He hasn't opened his briefcase, which he reaches for, as though he may be ready to leave. 

A stab of shame accompanies the thought, though it comes anyway - country doctors are indeed a far cry from castle doctors, in both manner and expertise. 

"Well, wait - what about my memories, doctor? Do you think they will come back?" 

"It is difficult to say. It is a fairly common occurance with a head injury like this…" 

"Common?" she asks, surprised. "I've only heard of it happening in stories, I don’t know anyone who actually -" 

"When I say common, of course, I mean to say it makes sense given the severity of the blow. You have a cranial fracture," he explains, pointing along his own left temple. 

"Oh - I've never had an injury like this one before. I'm surprised, it doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would, for something so serious as that."

"We have been giving you a tonic, for the pain." 

Surprised, Anna blurts, "while I was asleep?" 

"Standard practice," he says. "We will continue the dose for the next several days. I'll speak with your husband about it." 

"And when do you think the bandages will come off?" 

"We will check your head in about three days," he says, "but the splint on your arm will stay for much longer." 

"Okay, thank you, doctor. Is there anything I need to be watching out for?" 

"Don't strain yourself," he says, stern. "No walking about unaccompanied, no trying to force the memories to come back." 

Anna, who has already spent much of her waking hours prodding at the empty void in her mind and has the headache to show for it, ducks her head guiltily. 

"Of course, doctor. Thank you." 

He leaves her then, alone and awake in this unfamiliar place for the first time. 

She's not trying to force anything, she's just looking around. Anna, who has never been one to idle in bed all day, slips to her feet and wanders around her room, peering in her wardrobe and opening draws in her vanity. It doesn't seem like she shares the room with her husband, which is a surprise. She inspects her bookshelf - not terribly enthused by any of the titles, at a first look, anyway - and rummages through her sewing kit. She doesn't find a diary or correspondence of any kind, but she's always been prone to hiding that type of thing, squirreling them away as if someone were looking. 

She's settled in the window bench, looking out through the window at the front of the house and trying to see if the view by daylight sparks any recognition when Bertha enters again, with another sharp, warning knock. 

"Your husband is wondering if you would like to join him for lunch in the conservatory," she says, "unless you are not feeling like coming down?" 

"Oh, no of course I'll come!"

Is this a routine of theirs, she wonders? Sitting together and talking in the conservatory. She likes the idea. 

Bertha helps her get dressed, certainly a two-person endeavor while her arm is in this splint - Anna would struggle even to put her house shoes on alone - and leads her down through the house. 

Anna doesn't get much time to look around, Bertha obviously having other duties to return to, but she has the sense of a rather bland, sparsely furnished space. Certainly the smallest home Anna has ever been in, but it all feels rather like a romance from a story - the prince and princess eloping to a simple life in the country in order to be together. 

Her prince stands when she enters the conservatory and she crosses to sit beside him on the settee. There is a tray set up on the table beside him, with a lovely silver tea set, along with finger sandwiches and muffins for lunch. 

Hans pours the tea and begins arranging a plate for her, while Anna watches him, smiling. It seems that he is an attentive husband, even if they don't share a bedroom. 

"How are you finding Bertha?" Hans asks. 

"She has been very kind," Anna says. Generally she prefers to have a someone closer to her own age, but Bertha is a housekeeper, already going beyond her duties to help Anna while she is injured - Anna certainly isn't going to complain! 

"Good - I'm sure she has been missing you in the kitchens."

"In the kitchen?" Anna startles somewhat - does she cook for herself, in this new life? She's quite impressed with herself! 

"Yes, she's become quite accustomed to having you perched on your stool as she prepares dinner…" 

Anna gasps, a rush of emotion almost bringing tears to her eyes. How could she have forgotten the life she has here? 

"And Doctor Wallace?" Hans asks, "has he checked in with you?" 

"Yes, he was very helpful," she says, "I feel much better for having spoken to him. He says we will check the stitching in a few days."

"Excellent," says Hans, seeming very pleased. "The doctor will be staying with us while you recover. We can't take any risks with my wife's health." 

A very attentive husband, she marvels. 

"I thought you might like to…" and he passes a folded newspaper across. Anna seizes it, desperate suddenly. 

The whole day had felt a little bit like a dream, until: _September 23rd, 1847_ , printed neatly in black at the top of the page. 

_Four years_. She truly has lost four years of her memories, of her life - just as it has finally started!

Her vision swims and for a moment Anna feels a horrible, dizzy nausea, like the world is swaying around her. She closes her eyes and puts her head down into her lap. 

Hans runs a tentative hand over her back, patting a few times, gently. 

The feeling passes and Anna pops back up to blurt, "And we haven't - had any children?"

No more surprises, she prays. She won't be able to handle having forgotten a child. 

"Ah - no, no we haven't." He dismisses the question without any longing or wistfulness.

Anna chews her lip. She has always wanted children, lots of them. And isn't it usually couples who are deeply in love who have such large families? But she has lost her memories and regained an unmarried woman's hesitance about the subject, so she is reluctant to push on the subject if Hans isn't going to elaborate. 

She sips at her tea in the ensuing silence. Its not as sweet as she would like, but perhaps four years is enough to finally dull her childish sweet-tooth. 

How strange, for this man she only remembers knowing for a single day to know how she takes her tea better than she does. And for her to be married to a man for four years and not know how he takes his at all. 

Anna finds she can't summon much of an apatite but she tries to eat at her husband's urging. They don't talk - Anna supposes he may feel as awkward as she does. 

After some time, he stands and offers his arm. 

"I thought we might take a tour around the garden, if you're feeling well enough?" 

Anna jumps to her feet and wraps her good hand tight around the crook of his elbow. 

"Oh yes, that sounds lovely!"

She had been worried about being sent back up to her room to convalesce. A walk is enormously preferable. 

"And perhaps tomorrow we can take the carriage out? I imagine you would like to see more of the countryside - can't have you going stir crazy now can we?" 

He reaches out and flicks her gently on the end of her nose. 

Anna smiles at his teasing, trying to hold on to the sense that he knows her well enough for this kind of joke. What would she have teased him back with, she wonders, if she had her memories? 

They exit through the conservatory door, leaving the picked-at tray behind for Bertha, and follow a paved pathway, wide enough for a couple to walk side-by-side in a loop. 

Anna likes their garden immediately, far more than the inside of the house. She can't help but compare it to the curated landscapes of Arendelle castle, except this place has an overgrown quality to it that makes it feel almost like a wild field. Best of all, the garden backs up against the forest's edge, enclosed by a tall hedge with a gate in the middle. Anna can picture herself, with a basket of snacks, heading out through that gate for a day's walking. If not alone, then, well - Hans probably accompanies her, she supposes. It must be quite romantic. 

"We get all sorts of wildlife coming in from the forest," he tells her. "You get very excited by the squirrels, especially." 

"You were planning on commissioning a bird bath," he says, gesturing over at a stretch of grass. 

"We didn't have many frogs last spring," he tells her, as they pass by the pond, "but hopefully this year we will have better luck." 

There is a large stone by the water's edge, nearby a beautifully shady tree, and a face has been drawn on with dried green reeds. 

Anna laughs, patting his arm to direct his attention, "I used to do this when I was younger," she explains, pointing out the little face, "my sister and I, we had this snowman character - " 

"Olaf," Hans says, "I know." 

Anna smiles up at him and leans close against his arm. Of course he knows - he's her husband. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ♡

**Author's Note:**

> Just so no one is being mislead - this not a Hansanna endgame fic, but also not really enough Kristoff to put him in the relationship tag. 
> 
> Thank you to Rhianne for talking to me about it, and Liv for encouragement, and Laura for writing a much, much better memory-centric story ([Blessed are the Forgetful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621728)).


End file.
